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In all cases the best available copy has been filmed University Microfilms International 300 N ZeebRoad Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 8409999 Melhorn, Catharine Rose MENDELSSOHN'S "DIE ERSTE WALPURGISNACHT" University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign D.M.A. 1983 University Microfilms International 300N ZeebRoad,AnnArbor,MI48106 Copyright 1983 by Melhorn, Catharine Rose All Rights Reserved PLEASE NOTE: In all cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available cooy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a check mark V . 1. Glossy photographs or pages 2. Colored illustrations, paper or print 3. Photographs with dark background 4. Illustrations are poor copy 5. Pages with black marks, not original copy 6. Print shows through as there is text on both sides of page 7. Indistinct, broken or small print on several pages </ 8. Print exceeds margin requirements 9. Tightly bound copy with print lost in spine 10. Computer printout pages with indistinct print 11. Page(s) lacking when material received, and not available from school or author. 12. Page(s) seem to be missing in numbering only as text follows. 13. Two pages numbered . Text follows. 14. Curling and wrinkled pages 15. Other. University Microfilms International MENDELSSOHN'S DIE ERSTE WALPURGISNACHT BY CATHARINE ROSE MELHORN A.B., Smith College, 1963 M.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1966 THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1983 Urbana, Illinois wjmmr _ICMM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN THE GRADUATE COLLEGE JANUARY 1983 WE HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS BY CATHARINE ROSE MELHORN FMTTTT.Fn MENDELSSOHN'S DIE ERSTE WALPURGISNACHT BE ACCEPTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF. DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS ead of Department Committee on Final ExaminzyWnyf Chairman n p> tsu.. *74*Cw~y' *>-*<* /V£^,Jc. t Required for doctor's degree but not for master's © Copyright by Catharine Rose Melhorn 1983 Ill ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The following libraries and librarians have been of great help in my research: Boston Public Library: Diane Ota, who brought to my attention the uncatalogued nineteenth-century newspaper clippings in the Allen Brown Collection. Werner Josten Library of Smith College: Mary Ankudowich and Kathryn Burnett. Williston Library of Mount Holyoke College. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. For financial assistance I am indebted to the University of Illinois for grants and waivers of tuition and to Mount Holy oke College for a Faculty Research Grant and a grant from the Einhorn Fund. Those who have assisted and encouraged my work are numerous: Jane Brown, Irving Eisley, Joseph Ellis, Elizabeth Kennan, Jacqueline Melnick, Ingrid Merkel, Richard Sparks, and David Truman (all present or former colleagues a Mount Holyoke College); Peter Bloom, Joseph Boonin, and Don­ ald Loach; Marc Desrosiers of Hadley Printing; Tom Ward, Harold Decker, Edwin London, Guillermo Perich, and Louis Hal sey (members or former members of my doctoral committee); an Alexander Ringer (my thesis director). I am most grateful t my dear family: my husband (and editor) John Lemly, our chi dren, David and Diana, and my mother Catharine Z. Melhorn. iv CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii Chapter I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. GOETHE'S POEM: DIE ERSTE WALPURGISNACHT ... 15 III. GOETHE AND MENDELSSOHN 32 The Poet and the Composer 35 Mendelssohn and Berlioz: Their Relationship to Goethe 47 The Poem and the Composer 50 IV. THE CONCERT CANTATA BEFORE MENDELSSOHN'S WALPURGISNACHT 58 "Cantata"—An Ambiguous Term 60 The Solo Cantata-Ballad 62 The Choral-Orchestral Cantata 64 Lyric versus Dramatic Elements 66 Secular versus Sacred Elements 68 Public Concerts and the New Cantata Repertory 71 "Inflated" Ballad Cantatas: Andre's Lenore, Zelter's Johanna Sebus, and Loewe's Die erste Walpurqisnacht .... 78 Repertory for the Gesangverein: Oratorio, Opera Scenes, and the "Grand Cantata" 83 V. OPUS 60: THE MUSIC 97 In General 98 Scoring 99 Orchestra 99 Soloists 101 Chorus 102 V Structure and Style 103 An Overview 103 The Overture 106 No. 1: Tenor and Chorus 113 No. 2: Alto and Chorus 114 No. 3: Baritone and Chorus 115 No. 4: Chorus 117 No. 5: Bass and Chorus 118 No. 6: Chorus 121 No. 7: Baritone and Chorus 127 No. 8: Tenor and Chorus 129 No. 9: Baritone and Chorus 130 VI. PERFORMANCES OF WALPURGISNACHT: 1843-1900 . 136 Germany 137 The Leipzig Premiere 137 Other Performances in Germany 140 Walpurgisnacht and the German Social- Political Climate of Mid-century .... 149 England 155 The London Premiere 155 Other Performances in England 159 The United States 165 Traditional Performance Practices 168 VII. THE CONCERT CANTATA AFTER WALPURGISNACHT ... 173 Representative Works 174 Gade's Comala and ErlkBnigs Tochter .... 174 Schumann's Ballad Cantatas 177 Schumann's Pes Sangers Fluch 179 Hiller's Die Lorelei 184 Bruch's Scenen aus der Frith.jofs-Sage . 186 Brahms' Rinaldo 189 Bruch's Das Feuerkreuz 192 "Untergang" 194 APPENDIX A: A LIST OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY GERMAN CONCERT CANTATAS OF BALLAD CHARACTER AFTER WALPURGISNACHT 203 APPENDIX B: ONE MODERN PERFORMANCE OF MENDELSSOHN'S WALPURGISNACHT 207 BIBLIOGRAPHY 218 VITA 232 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Felix Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht is a work of about thirty-five minutes' duration for four soloists--- alto, tenor, baritone, and bass—mixed chorus, and orches­ tra. Its text is a ballad by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Mendelssohn composed a first version of the work between 1830-32, giving it at least one Berlin performance in 1833. Following considerable revisions begun in 1840, the work was premiered in Leipzig in 1843 and published a year later as Opus 60. Despite its intrinsic merit, immediate popularity, and secure place in the common repertory of the later nine­ teenth century, Die erste Walpurgisnacht is not well known or often performed today. This thesis will offer a full- scale study of the work and its relationship to a signifi­ cant body of cantata repertory in the nineteenth century. Nearly fifty years elapsed between Goethe's writing of "Die erste Walpurgisnacht" in 1798-99 and the completion and first performance of Mendelssohn's Opus 60. In the late 1790s, Goethe, then director of the Hoftheater in Weimar, wanted to write a libretto for a sequel to Mozart's Magic Flute, which he had produced there with enthusiasm and care. To advance this plan, he made the acquaintance of the Berlin composer Karl Friedrich Zelter, a few of whose recent songs Goethe knew and admired. But because Zelter lacked confidence as an opera composer, the hoped-for collaboration 2 did not materialize. Goethe's inclusion of the poem "Die erste Walpurgisnacht" in his first letter to Zelter, the be­ ginning of a remarkable correspondence lasting until their deaths in the same year (1832), perhaps showed his reluctance to let the matter drop. Maybe he could whet Zelter's inter­ est in dramatic music by starting out with a relatively modest project, a cantata with ballad text? He wrote: I enclose a production wnich has rather a strange appearance. It was suggested by the question, whether dramatic ballads might not be worked out in such a manner, as to furnish a composer with material for a cantata.3 Although Zelter had been successful in this genre earlier--his sacred cantata on the death of King Frederick the Great had been an important turning point in his artistic life—his efforts to set "Die erste Walpurgisnacht" did not go well. He wrote to Goethe in September, 1799: Friedrich Blume, Goethe und die Musik (Kassel: Baren- reiter, 1948), pp. 48-50. 2Ibid., p. 51. Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Goethe1s Letters to Zelter, ed. and trans. A. D. Coleridge (London: George Bell, 1887), p. 3. Karl Friedrich Zelter, Darstellunqen seines Lebens, ed. Johann-Wolfgang SchottlSinder (Hildesheim, New York: Georg 01ms, 1978), p.